Comments

Revised Common Lectionary Commentary

Clippings:
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost - October 8, 2017

Saint Dominiccontemplating the Scriptures

Author's note:Sometimes I have material left over when I edit Comments down to
fit the available space. This page presents notes that landed on the clipping
room floor. Some may be useful to you. While I avoid technical language
in the Comments (or explain special terms), Clippings may have unexplained
jargon from time to time.

A hypertext Glossary of Terms is integrated with Clippings. Simply
click on any highlighted word in the text and a pop-up window will appear
with a definition. Bibliographic references are also integrated in the
same way.

Exodus 20:1-4,7-9,12-20

The Ten Commandments also appear in Deuteronomy
5:6-21. They are an ethical code.

Christians number the commandments in two ways: the Anglican, Greek and Reformed
traditions consider vv.
3-6 to be two commandments and v.
17 one, while the Lutheran and Roman Catholic traditions consider vv.
3-6 to be one commandment and v.
17 to be two. [
NJBC]

There are two differences between the Exodus and Deuteronomy versions of the
Ten Commandments:

The reason for keeping the sabbath: see Exodus
20:11 and Deuteronomy
5:15, and

In the Exodus account, the “house” (household)
may well include the neighbour’s “wife”, slaves and animals, so
v.
17 appears to be one commandment – and the Anglican, Greek and Reformed
traditions make more sense. However, in the Deuteronomy account, “house”
seems to have a more limited meaning – and the Lutheran and Roman Catholic
numbering make more sense.

Per Jewish tradition, v.
2 is the first commandment; however Christians consider this verse to be a preface
that summarizes the meaning of the Exodus – thus setting the Law in the context
of God’s redemptive action. [
NOAB]

Originally each commandment was a short utterance
(as are those in vv.
13-15) to which explanatory comments were added (e.g. “for ...” in
vv.
5,
6,
9-11). [
NOAB]

The commandments in vv.
3-11 concern the relationship of humans to God, while those in vv.
12-17 concern societal relations. In the Lutheran and Roman Catholic numbering,
this neatly splits the ten into two groups of five.

Verse 1: “these words”: They are known as the Decalogue
or “the ten words”: see
34:28; Deuteronomy
4:13;
10:4. (In all references, “ten commandments” is literally ten
words.)

Verse 4: “anything”: Living is implied. This commandment
prohibits the common practice in the ancient world of personifying natural powers,
making animal or human statues to them, and worshipping these powers.

Verse 5: “jealous”: God tolerates no rivals for his people’s
devotion. [
NOAB]
NJBC suggests impassioned: God is so passionately committed to Israel
that he will ensure that all sins are punished even if it is the descendants of the
sinners who are punished. This is a reference to those who “reject” God
after accepting him (in Chapter
19).

Verse 7: “wrongful use of the name”: i.e. use of God’s
name in magic, divination or false swearing (in legal proceedings). This reflects
the ancient idea that knowledge of someone’s name could be used to exert magical
control over the person: see Genesis
32:27,
29 (Jacob at Jabbok) [
NOAB] [
NJBC]

Verse 11: In Deuteronomy
5:15, the reason given for keeping the sabbath is to remember God’s might
in freeing Israel from slavery in Egypt.

Verse 12: In a society where traditions were transmitted orally, the elders
were the repositories of knowledge. Note that mothers were to be equally honoured
with fathers: an unusual idea in a region where women were primarily instruments
of male procreation, and expendable slaves. [
CAB] See also
21:15,
17; Deuteronomy
27:16.

Verse 13: “murder”: A footnote in the NRSV offers kill
as an alternative translation. In Deuteronomy
19:11-13 and Numbers
35:6-21 killing in a holy war is permitted. Unpremeditated killing is tolerated:
see
21:12-17. Capital punishment is permitted.

Verse 14: “adultery”: Violation of the marital rights of another
man through intercourse with a married or betrothed woman is envisioned: see Deuteronomy
22:22-37.

Verse 15: “steal”: The Hebrew word used here is the one used
of the kidnapping of Joseph in Genesis
40:15. [
CAB] The last commandment (v.
17) covers stealing per se. [
NJBC]

Verse 16: The “neighbour” here and in v.
17 is probably a fellow member of the Israelite community. [
CAB] You shall tell the truth in a lawsuit. See also
23:1; Deuteronomy
19:15-21; 1 Kings
21:8-14 (Jezebel).

Verse 17: “covet”: While
FoxMoses considers the Hebrew word. hamad, to mean desire, long for
,
NJBC suggests that conspire is a better translation.

Verse 18: God’s appearance resembles the appearance of the storm
god Baal in Canaanite texts, especially in combining thunder and lightning with earthquake:
see also Psalm
18:8 – so this conforms to a known literary pattern. [
FoxMoses]

Sinai never became an important biblical cult site. It was necessary to demonstrate
that Israel’s laws and institutions arose, not out of normal settled political
and economic circumstances, but rather as a direct gift and stipulation of God himself
– hence the choice of a site removed from the great cultural centres of the
ancient Near East. Israel had to start everything anew, free of all previous cultural
influences. [
FoxMoses]

No other ancient society, to our knowledge, cut a covenant with a people.
So the true king is heavenly, not earthly.

FoxMoses translates
19:6 as ... you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation ...
– so despite there being a priestly group in ancient Israel, the ideal was
that each person was an intermediary between God and other people.

FoxMoses wonders whether the materials in Exodus
21-24 (and other texts in the
Torah which enumerate laws) should be taken as actual regulations or cases, or
as something else, rather more didactic.

A wisdom hymn: being a
Torah hymn (vv.
7-10) and confession of sin and prayer for forgiveness (vv.
11-14) [
NJBC]

NOAB suggests that the original poem was vv.
1-6, and that vv.
7-14, praising the revelation of God in the Law, were added later in order to
counterbalance what seemed to be an almost pagan influence upon the revelation of
God in nature; however
NJBC considers that the thematic connections show that this psalm has always
been one poem. He views the Law as one of God’s works. Note the change in divine
names at v.
7: from “God” to “Lord
”.

Verses 1-6: The glory of God is shown in the phenomena of the heavens
and especially in the might of the sun. [
NOAB] God’s glory is revealed through the splendour and order of creation,
especially in the daily cycle of the sun. [
CAB]

Verses 1-4a: The sky and successive days and nights are personified as
members of a heavenly choir ceaselessly singing God’s praises. [
NOAB]

Verse 1: “the glory of God”: For the attribution of glory
to God (here El in Hebrew), see also
24:7,
10 (“king of glory”) and
29:3 (“God of glory”). “Glory” suggests both the nimbus
of light enveloping the deity and the storm cloud: see Exodus
40:34; Psalm
18:12-13. [
NJBC]

Verse 2: Another translation: Day after day, they [the heavens] pour
forth his word; night after night it [the firmament] declares his knowledge.

Verses 4b-6: The skies provide a track along which the sun, like an athlete,
runs its daily course. [
NOAB]

Verses 7-9: There are six synonyms for the Law in these verses. See also
Psalm
119. [
NOAB]

Verse 7: “making wise the simple”: For
wisdom and
Torah, see also
1:1-2: “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or
take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight
is in the law of the Lord, and on his
law they meditate day and night”. [
NJBC]

Verse 8: “enlightening the eyes”: i.e. providing health and
well-being.
4:6 says: “There are many who say, ‘O that we might see some good!
Let the light of your face shine on us, O
Lord!’”. [
JBC]

Verse 9: “fear”: Many scholars translate the Hebrew as
word. 119:11 says: “I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not
sin against you”. [
NOAB] For “clean”, the
REB has unsullied.

Verses 11-12: In the Law, people see that benefits are to be gained and
errors are to be avoided. [
CAB]

Verses 11-14: The perfection or blamelessness of the Law is mirrored in
the prayer of the psalmist: that he be blameless.

Verse 12: “hidden faults”: Another translation: presumptuous
sins

Verse 14: This verse can be paraphrased as: May my speech and thought
be acceptable to God, who has made all this possible. [
CAB]

Philippians 3:4b-14

Verse 1: Scholars think that Philippians is actually made up of several
letters. A piece of evidence for this is the abrupt change in tone and content: one
letter appears to end with v.
1a, and another to begin with v.
1b. This letter, which was probably written later, extends to
4:1b. [
NJBC]

Verse 1: “the same things”: i.e. what Paul has written about
in previous chapters which have caused disharmony in the community. [
NOAB]

Verse 2: “dogs”: Paul uses strong language in speaking of
the
Judaizers. In Jewish circles, this term was reserved for Gentiles, the unclean,
and outsiders. [
NJBC] Paul’s attitude towards those who considered circumcision a requirement
for being a Christian is clear: he writes in Galatians
5:12: “I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!”.
It is likely that these people were Jewish Christians. The effect of their activities
was to divide the community, by suggesting that those who were circumcised were
elite.

Verse 2: “the evil workers”: Evidently those referred to in
1:15 (“Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill”),
1:17 (“the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely
but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment”) and
2:21 (“All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus
Christ”). [
CAB]

Verse 2: “those who mutilate the flesh”: As the NRSV footnote
says, the Greek means literally the mutilation. Paul contrasts the mutilation
with the circumcision. He may be thinking of what the prophets of Baal did to themselves
in 1 Kings
18:28. [
NJBC] The reference to those who preach the necessity of circumcision is bitter
and ironical. [
NOAB] The language is the same as in Galatians
5:12. [
CAB]

Verse 3: “the circumcision”: In Romans
2:28-29, Paul says: “real circumcision is a matter of the heart”.
Paul thinks of the Old Testament: Jeremiah
4:4 (“Circumcise yourselves to the
Lord, remove the foreskin of your hearts”);
31:31 (“I will make a new covenant ...”); Deuteronomy
10:16 (“circumcise the foreskin of your heart”);
30:6; Leviticus
26:41; Ezekiel
44:7. The idea is also found in 1QS (Qumran Rule of the Community) 5:5, 26. Only
inward circumcision is valid for the
eschatological era. Circumcision of the heart is a new moral life. See also Galatians
6:14-15 and Colossians
2:11-13. [
NOAB]

1QS 5:4-5 says “... No one should walk in the stubbornness of his heart
and his eyes and the musings of his inclination. Instead he should circumcise in
the Community the foreskin of his tendency and of his stiff neck in order to lay
a foundation of truth for Israel, for the Community of the eternal covenant.”

Verse 3: “the flesh”: i.e. outward states or rites.

Verses 5-6: In Galatians
1:14, Paul tells us about himself: “I advanced in Judaism beyond many among
my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors”.
[
CAB]

Verse 5: “on the eighth day”: Genesis
17:12 and Leviticus
12:3 state that a boy must be circumcised eight days after birth. [
JBC]

Verse 5: “Benjamin”: This tribe was elite because, of all
the brothers, only Benjamin was born in the Promised Land. Also, Saul, Israel’s
first king, was from the tribe of Benjamin. [
JBC]

Verse 5: “a Hebrew born of Hebrews”: There are three possible
interpretations:

NOAB suggests: though living in Tarsus, a Greek city, Paul’s family spoke
Aramaic, the language of
Palestine. Acts
21:40 tells us that “he addressed them in the Hebrew language”, i.e.
Aramaic. See also Acts
22:2. [
NOAB]

Paul is speaking of his lineage, i.e. he is a Hebrew of Hebrew
parents, rather than a convert or a son of a convert

He is using a Semitic
superlative, meaning roughly the ultimate (or superlative) Hebrew. (Recall
the Broadway play Fiddler on the Roof and the song Wonder of Wonders, Miracle
of Miracles, and note “king of kings” in Ezra
7:12; Ezekiel
26:7; Daniel
2:37; 1 Timothy
6:15; Revelation
17:14;
19:16.) While this interpretation is the most likely, one cannot be completely
certain because the Greek translated “born of”, ex, does not occur
in Revelation
17:14. [Alan Perry]

Verse 8: “knowing Christ”: Such knowledge and personal experience
transforms a person into the likeness of the one who is known. In 2 Corinthians
3:18, Paul writes: “... all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory
of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same
image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit”.
[
NJBC]

Verse 8: “suffered the loss of all things”: See also Matthew
13:44-46 (the parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl of Great Price).
[
NJBC]

Verse 9: See also Romans
3:21-31: “But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed,
and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith
in Jesus Christ for all who believe ...”. [
CAB]

Verse 9: “be found in him”: i.e. to be identified with Christ
at the
eschatological judgement. [
NJBC]

Verse 9: “in Christ”: Per the NRSV footnote, another rendering
is of Christ, meaning either Christ’s faithful obedience until death
(Romans
5:18-21 and Philippians
2:6-8) or the entire ministry of Jesus. [
NOAB]

Verse 9: “the righteousness from God based on faith”: To Paul,
in living by the Law one attempts to achieve one’s own righteousness: in Romans
10:3, he says of Jews: “being ignorant of the righteousness that comes
from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God's righteousness”.
True righteousness is a gift received in faith: in Genesis
15:6, we read that Abraham “believed the
Lord; and the Lord reckoned
it to him as righteousness’. [
CAB]

Verses 10-11: To know Christ as risen and living is to have “power”:
to suffer like him and to possess the sure hope of rising and living with him. [
NOAB]

Verse 10: “by becoming like him in his death ...”: In Romans
6:3-5, Paul asks: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized
into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with
him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been
united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection
like his”. [
CAB]

Verse 12: Though we have God’s gift, we still need to work towards
true godliness. [
NOAB]

Verse 12a: Perhaps Paul’s adversaries claimed that perfection can
be achieved in this life.

Verse 14: “the prize”: Paul thinks of himself as being like
an athlete in a Greek footrace. The winner received a victor’s crown at the
finishing post. [
NOAB]

Verse 14: “the heavenly call”: It is to ascend and join with
Christ in eternal life. This is the moment of perfection. [
NJBC]

Verse 15: “mature”: Mature Christians realize that they have
not already attained perfection in their knowledge of Christ. [
CAB]

Verse 17: :join in imitating me”: i.e. in centring Christian life
in the cross of Christ: see vv.
10,
18.

Verse 18: “many”:
NOAB presumes these to be professing Christians but not the
Judaizers of v.
2 because the description in v.
19 scarcely fits them; however
NJBC sees those who preach circumcision for Christians as being “enemies
of the cross” for they deny the efficacy of the cross and thus void Christ’s
self sacrifice. See also Galatians
2:21.

Verse 19: “Their end is destruction”: i.e. at the Last Day.

Verse 19: “their god is the belly”: To
NJBC, either a reference to Jewish food laws or to self-centeredness.

Verse 19: “their glory is in their shame”: Normally the penis
is kept modestly covered, but the “enemies” “glory” in it.
[
NJBC]

Verse 20: “our citizenship is in heaven”: We are already citizens,
although the new era has not yet arrived. See also Galatians
4:24-27 and Ephesians
2:19. Recall that the citizenship of the Philippians was in Rome. [
NOAB]

Verse 21: See also Romans
8:23 (“... we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan
inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies”); 1 Corinthians
15:47-57; 2 Corinthians
5:15; Colossians
3:1-4.

Verse 21: “the body of our humiliation”:
NJBC offers lowly body. The physical bodies of Christians will be transformed
in order to enter eternal life. See also 1 Corinthians
15:20. [
NJBC]

Verse 21: “to make all things subject to himself”: An allusion
to Psalm
8:6 (“You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have
put all things under their feet”), to Paul a psalm telling of the messianic
reign of Christ. See also 1 Corinthians
15:25-28; Romans
8:20; Ephesians
1:22; Hebrews
2:6-9; 1 Peter
3:22.

NJBC offers a different interpretation from the one in Comments (which
is based on
Blomberg): to him the slaves are the prophets killed by Israel, culminating in
Jesus as the son, the “other tenants” (v.
41) and “a people” (v.
43) are the Church (which for Matthew is believing Jews plus converted Gentiles),
the true Israel.

Verse 35: “beat one, killed another, and stoned another”:
Matthew’s source, Mark, lacks the stoning of a slave, so
NJBC wonders whether the stoning of James is in view.

Verse 37: “his son”: Matthew omits beloved from his
Marcan source.

Verse 38: “This is the heir”: The tenants leap to a conclusion.
In fact, the landowner is alive and can punish them. [
NJBC]

Verse 39: In Mark
12:8, the son is seized, then killed, then thrown out.
NJBC notes that Matthew changes the order – perhaps to fit the view that
Jesus died outside the city. See also John
19:17; Hebrews
13:12-13.

Verse 41: Jesus says in
8:11-12: “‘I tell you, many will come from east and west and will
eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of
the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth’”. See also Acts
13:46;
18:6;
28:28.

Verse 42: Jesus quotes from Psalm
118:22-23 to support his teaching. [
NOAB] These verses are also quoted in Acts
4:11 and 1 Peter
2:7. This was a favourite early Christian proof text. [
Blomberg]

Verse 43: Jesus’ conclusion is milder than the chief priests and
elders expect. The wicked tenants will not be destroyed but will lose the promise.
[
NJBC]

Verse 43: “the kingdom of God”: In this context, probably
the full end-time blessing. [
NJBC]

Comments: the landowner stands for God, the first tenants for Israel’s
leaders, ... the second tenants are replacements for Israel: That v.
33 almost directly quotes the opening lines of Isaiah’s parable (
5:1-7, the Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard) makes these equations certain. [
Blomberg]

God is patient and long suffering in waiting for his people to bear the
fruit which he expects of them, even when they are repeatedly and overtly hostile
in their rebellion against him.

A day will come when God’s patience
will be exhausted and those who have rejected him will be destroyed.

God’s
purposes will not thereby be thwarted, for he will raise up new leaders who will
produce the fruit the original ones failed to provide.

While elements
in most parables approach the absurd (causing the first listeners to break into hearty
laughter) such hostilities as described here were not uncommon in first-century conflicts
between absentee landlords (especially Roman ones) and their tenants – so this
parable may look extreme but it is not. [
Blomberg]

Blomberg notes that there is nothing in the text to identify the son as Jesus.
In Jesus’ telling of the parable, this is true, but I consider that in Matthew’s
hands (and to his audience), the son is Jesus.